Your local police officers may be watching your profiles as an investigative tool, allowing them to obtain probable cause and conduct searches and warrants if they suspect you may be breaking firearm or storage laws. Law enforcement officers can and do watch the social media profiles of potential suspects and perpetrators, and their surveillance can lead to arrests. In other words, social media activity is akin to speech in a public square, even with privacy settings enabled. In recent history, courts have considered social media posts to be admissible evidence, based on the principle that there is no “ expectation of privacy” on these platforms. If they also know that you own firearms, or if they can determine the location of your gun safe from your posts, you may return home only to find out someone broke in and took the gun safe away.Īnything you post on social media platforms can be used against you in a court of law. The sort of information a potential thief or burglar looks for are public posts of newly-obtained or newly-purchased equipment, such as new cars, new computers, jewelry, expensive gadgets, and of course, guns.Īlthough burglars usually resell items stolen in burglaries for profit, firearms may be conserved and used to commit other crimes, possibly causing you to become a suspect if you did not or could not report the guns as stolen.Īccording to a 2016 survey, at least 10.5% of burglars use social media like Facebook and Instagram and other tech tools such as Google Maps and Foursquare to case houses and gauge potentially valuable targets.Īnother tactic used by burglars is to use social media posts to verify whether you’re home, establishing a profile of your life habits and patterns, and planning the best time to break in around the moments where no-one is home. The more publicly-available information on social media profiles, the more useful it is. Thieves readily use social media to look up information about potential targets. It is vital to know who might be looking for information on your guns. Data mining of information regarding gun owners is relevant to many different entities.
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